Hong Kong officials held rare talks in Bangkok this week with Thai counterparts to find ways to bring home those lured from the Asian financial hub and trapped in illegal work in Southeast Asia, seeking to combat a growing trend.
Tuesday’s talks follow last week’s high-profile case of a Chinese actor believed to have been a victim of human trafficking, who went missing after travelling to Thailand, but was later tracked to Myanmar and rescued.
The UN says border towns in Thailand, Laos and Myanmar have become regional hubs for telecom and other online fraud, with hundreds of thousands trafficked to work in scam centers there.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“There have been signs of a resurgence in the situation where Hong Kong residents are suspected of being lured to Southeast Asian countries and detained to engage in illegal work,” the territory’s government said on Sunday.
Such signs have grown since the second quarter of last year, it added in a statement.
A team led by Hong Kong Undersecretary for Security Michael Cheuk (卓孝業) met Thai police and government officials on Tuesday to help assist with the safe return of Hong Kong residents as soon as possible, it said in a subsequent statement.
Of 28 requests for help from authorities, 16 of the people involved had returned home, while the remaining 12 had “reported restrictions on their movement,” it said.
On Friday last week, China’s embassy in Myanmar urged vigilance by its citizens against telecom and online fraud following reports of compatriots lured to Myanmar’s border town of Myawaddy by online scams that promised “high-paying overseas jobs.”
Most of the trafficking victims hail from Southeast Asian countries as well as Taiwan, China and Hong Kong, but some also from as far away as Africa and Latin America, the UN has said.
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
Trinidad and Tobago declared a new state of emergency on Friday after authorities accused a criminal network operating in prisons across the country of plotting to kill key government officials and attack public institutions. It is the second state of emergency to be declared in the twin-island republic in a matter of months. In December last year, authorities took similar action, citing concerns about gang violence. That state of emergency lasted until mid-April. Police said that smuggled cellphones enabled those involved in the plot to exchange encrypted messages. Months of intelligence gathering led investigators to believe the targets included senior police officers,
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
RSS